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Product Description

The battleship Missouri was authorized by the United States Congress in 1939 and laid down on 6 January, 1941 at the Brooklyn Navy Yad. Missouri was launched just over three years later, in January 1944, and commissioned on June 11, 1944. Though two sister ships were being built at that time, they were never completed, making the Missouri the last battleship completed for the U.S. Navy. Her eight boilers and four steam turbines generated 212,000 shaft horsepower, and coupled with her great length of 887 feet (270m), Missouri was capable of 33 knots. She was designed to fit through the Panama Canal with only one foot (30.5cm) of clearance on either side. Her nine 16-inch (40.6cm) guns were the most powerful ever fitted to a U.S. Navy battleship, and could fire 2,700-pond (1,224kg) shells at targets 40,000 yards (36,200m) away.

The Missouri joined the 5th Fleet in the Pacific in January 1945, and fought at the battle of Okinawa and also bombarded Japan. She shot down several aircraft and was hit by one Kamikaze suicide aircraft that did no damage. The Missouri was selected to be the site of the formal surrender of Japan to the Allied Powers, which took place on board September 2, 1945. She remained in commission after the war, and was the only battleship available at the start of the Korean War in 1953. She served two tours of duty in the Korean waters.

Missouri was decommissioned and placed in reserve in 1955. From 1984 to 1986, the Missouri was modernised at Long Beach Naval Shipyard. Old radar systems and weapons were replaced with new SPS-49 radar, Tomahawk cruise missiles and Harpoon anti-ship missiles. After an around-the-world cruise, the Missouri escorted tankers in the Persian Gulf in 1987. During Operation Desert Storm in January 1991, Missouri fired 28 Tomahawk missiles at Iraqi targets and fired her main armament at shore targets in Iraqi-occupied Kuwait. Two Iraqi Silkworm missiles were fired at Missouri on Feb. 23, 1991. One missed and the other was shot down by HSM Gloucester.

Missouri was decommissioned again in March 1992, and is now a museum ship in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.